1. Technical Field
Aspects of the present invention relate to a processing technique for creating an installer to be used for installing a device driver (for controlling a peripheral device (printer, scanner, MFP (Multi Function Peripheral), etc.)) in a computer.
2. Related Art
In recent years with advanced computer network technologies, networks such as large-scale LANs (Local Area Networks) are commonly constructed in companies, universities, etc. by interconnecting numbers of PCs (Personal Computers). To such a network, peripheral devices like printers, scanners and MFPs (Multi Function Peripherals) are also connected to be shared by a lot of PCs on the network.
Such a network-constructing environment is usually provided with at least one manager or administrator (hereinafter simply referred to as a “manager”) for the overall control of not only the network but also PCs and peripheral devices connected to the network, and such a manager generally hopes to previously unify the PCs' settings regarding the control of peripheral devices to desired settings (e.g. a setting for operating printers with their toner saving modes (toner saving functions) constantly turned ON). For this purpose, it is ideal to install device drivers (for the control of peripheral devices) in the PCs, with desired settings previously made to the device drivers (i.e. after making the desired settings to the device drivers).
Incidentally, the installation of a device driver in a PC is generally carried out by use of an installer. The installer includes several driver configuration files as the main body of the device driver, an initial setting file describing control parameters to be used by the device driver for controlling a peripheral device, and an installation program for copying the driver configuration files and the initial setting file to the PC and making necessary settings (an installer including such components is also called an “installation set”).
In order to create an installer capable of installing a device driver in a PC with desired settings previously made to the device driver as above, it becomes necessary to rewrite the contents of the initial setting file included in the installer to desired values. However, such rewriting, requiring a thorough knowledge of the contents of the initial setting file which are unique to each device driver, is difficult for people other than the vendor supplying the device driver.
For this reason, a manager hoping for such an installer generally requests the vendor of the device driver to create an installer in which the contents of the initial setting file have been rewritten to desired values. However, the creation of such an installer takes an extremely long time and that can cause an excessive load on the vendor.
Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2003-280840 discloses an installer that lets the user input desired settings at the installation of a printer driver, memorizes the inputted settings, and makes the settings (memorized at the point of the installation) to the printer driver. With the installer, the user is relieved of the need of making settings of the printer driver on each printing since desired settings can be made to the printer driver at the point of the installation. However, even with the installer, the settings have to be made for each PC in which the printer driver is installed, and thus it is still extremely troublesome for the manager of a network to make desired settings for each of the PCs included in the network.